Comparative biosciences professor Fred Kummerow, now 100, first reported a link between dietary trans fats and heart disease in 1957. Trained in lipid biochemistry, Kummerow later determined the mechanisms by which trans fats contributed to atherosclerosis in patients with heart disease. In 2009, he petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to ban trans fats from...

Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (PARC), a North American conservation network devoted to amphibians and reptiles and their habitats, recently formed a task force to coordinate response to disease outbreaks impacting those species. Matt Allender, DVM, PhD, of the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine, along with Matt Gray, PhD, from the University...

I spent March 30-April 10, 2015, in the surgery department of the veterinary hospital at the University of Sao Paulo in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Here I was immersed in another culture, another language, and another viewpoint of veterinary medicine. The clinic here is lower cost than private practice and is located centrally in the city...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Dolphins found stranded on Gulf of Mexico beaches following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill were much more likely to have severe lung and adrenal gland damage “consistent with petroleum product exposure” than dolphins stranded elsewhere and prior to the spill, researchers report. One in five dolphins from the spill zone also...

A group of undergraduate students at the University of Pennsylvania recently created a video influenced by Dr. Jodi Flaws, professor of comparative biosciences at Illinois. Dr. Flaws specializes in research involving factors such as toxicants that can affect the female reproductive system. One of Dr. Flaws’ recent research projects looked at how bisphenol A (BPA),...

Illinois dog owners should minimize their dog’s exposure to other dogs, if at all possible. Update, May 26: Researchers at the College of Veterinary Medicine explored the question of whether the canine influenza vaccines available in the United States are protective against the newly emerged strain by comparing the two viral strains at the genetic...

What are birds doing when they turn around to nibble or rub their heads on their lower backs? Checking for “unsightly” smells? Inspecting their new tribal pattern lower back tattoo? Jokes aside, there’s an oil gland there. Birds, cursed by a lack of dexterous forelimbs, must use their heads and beaks to anoint their feathers...

When scientists exposed pregnant mice to levels of bisphenol A equivalent to those considered safe in humans, three generations of female mouse offspring experienced significant reproductive problems, including declines in fertility, sexual maturity and pregnancy success, the scientists report in the journal Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology. BPA exposure during pregnancy was associated with reproductive problems...

Standards are needed for tests used to check for clotting ability in the blood of various species Two Illinois faculty members who are boarded in veterinary emergency and critical care recently published their findings showing that the blood of horses differs substantially from that of humans and dogs when a diagnostic tool called thromboelastometry is...

A cough, runny nose, fever, and lethargy. In dogs, these are classic signs of highly infectious upper respiratory problems that are lumped under the broad term “kennel cough.” The specific pathogen causing kennel cough may be viral, bacterial, or a combination of these. Because many different pathogens cause kennel cough, laboratory testing is required to...